Don’t be like me and fight 3+ hours on the wrong difficulty. Go to Casual PvP and set difficulty to normal; then go to Explore and set the desired difficulty there.
Thanks to all in the latest update thread who pointed this out. I was slow to catch on.
Well, what can you expect from orcses brains—they’re slow to catch on 
(In all seriousness I’m sorry that happened to you, as your posts make me smile more than most people’s)
We may not be the best or the brightest, but we are the biggest and the baddest!
TYVM for your kind words. I must have read 3 or 4 forum posts, and a few comments in global chat, before it sunk in. Casual pvp? I’ve never fought a casual pvp battle. Why would that matter? It did though. 
For the Horde.
@ChunkyMono, I’ve registered to the forum just to thank you for your post. I am a new player (1.5 month) and I had exactly the same problem like you.
I could win Explore level 10, yesterday, and today I was losing at level 2. Sure enough, my casual PVP was on Warlord IV. I have changed it to normal like you said and it solved the problem.
As a new player, I just don’t understand why would difficulty level from PVP had anything to do with Explore difficulty, especially now with new 12 difficulties introduced in patch 4.6? Could somebody explain it to me, please?
Edit: I have found the answer to my question in Patch 4.6 thread: 4.6 Update Patch Notes - #114 by Magnusimus It is a bug.
I set the Vault difficulty to Warlord IV and forgot to reset to normal when done. Sure enough, level 12 explores were one-shotting my boyz again. At least it wasn’t a failed boss run, and I knew how to fix.
Also, I noticed the difference in Vault gold between normal and IV was only about 20 gold, so not worth the difference in difficulty. Some people don’t mind the increased difficulty for explores, and use it to increase gold production at difficulty 7 +/-. It still seems like a bug/exploit to me tho.
gl hf.
ROFL, done diff 12 yesterday and today half day and notice this just now (all white WL III was active). And I was like ‘wow troops on diff 12 one-hit me if I don’t protect myself’ xD
But whatever with he usual Mang +Skull spam team the stats of the enemy don’t matter anyway.
But at least I can scale souls again. I was upset that difficulty didn’t scale soul drops anymore. In my mind I imaged lots of souls on higher difficulties.
edit: Difficulty 12 on WL IV and Normal (stats and rewards)
